Week 3    Day 6

    Listen:

Conversation with Wives in a Rose Garden

CL 293. I was once looking through a window toward the east and saw seven women sitting on a bank of roses by a certain fountain, drinking water.... one of them by a nod invited me.... They said, “We are wives, and are having a conversation here about the delights of conjugial love; and from much confirmation we conclude that those delights are also the delights of wisdom” ....

CL 293:7. After this there appeared from afar off as it were a dove with a leaf of a tree in its mouth; but as it came near, in place of a dove was seen a little boy with a paper in his hand. And coming up to us he held it out to me, and said, “Read this to the virgins of the fountain.”

And I read these words: “Tell the inhabitants of the earth with whom you are that there is a love truly conjugial, the delights of which are myriads, scarcely any of which the world as yet knows, but it will know them when the church betroths herself to her Lord and marries.”

CL 294. After some days I again saw the seven wives in a rose garden, but not the same one as before.... [Swedenborg reported that he had shared what he had learned from them with some wives on earth, but they said he was joking, about their continually thinking about their husband’s love for them, and conjugial love being delightful.]

[3] To this the wives sitting in the rose garden replied, “Friend, you do not know the wisdom and prudence of wives, because they entirely conceal it from men, and they conceal it to no other end than that they may be loved. For every man who is not spiritually rational and moral but only naturally so is cold towards his wife. Cold is latent with him in inmosts. This coldness the wise and prudent wife exquisitely and keenly observes, and to that extent conceals her conjugial love, and draws it into her bosom and hides it there so deeply that not the least of it appears in her face or voice or gesture. The reason is that in the degree that the love appears, the man’s coldness toward marriage pours forth from the inmosts of his mind where it resides into its ultimate [expressions], and induces a total frigidity of the body, and a consequent urge towards separation from bed and bedroom.”

[4] Then I asked, “Where does such cold come from, which you call conjugial cold [or coldness toward marriage]?”

They answered, “It is from their insanity in spiritual things; and every man who is insane in spiritual things is inmostly cold to his wife, and inmostly warm towards harlots. And as conjugial love and scortatory [or licentious] love are opposite to each other, it follows that conjugial love becomes cold when scortatory love is warm. And when cold rules within him, a man cannot bear from his wife any sense of love, and thus no breath of it. For this reason. the wife so wisely and prudently conceals it, and as far as she conceals it, by denying and refusing him, so far the man is revived and restored by the inflowing meretricious [or wanton] sphere....

[5] “Every chaste wife loves her husband, even if he is unchaste. But because only wisdom is receptive to that love, therefore the wife uses every effort to turn his insanity into wisdom, that is, that he may not lust after others besides herself. She does this in a thousand ways, taking the greatest care that none of them shall be discovered by the man, for she knows well that love cannot be compelled but is insinuated in freedom. Therefore, it is given to women to know every state of mind of their husbands from sight, from hearing, and from touch; but it is not given to husbands, on the other hand, to know any state of mind of their wives.

[6] “A chaste wife can look at her husband with a stern expression, speak to him in a sharp voice, and even be angry and quarrel, and yet in heart cherish a gentle and tender love for him....”

[7] After the seven wives had said these and many more things of the kind, their husbands came with clusters of grapes in their hands, some of which were of delicious flavor, and some of offensive taste; and the wives said, “Why have you also brought bad or wild grapes?”

The husbands replied, “Because we perceived in our souls, with which yours are united, that you were speaking with that man about love truly conjugial, that its delights are delights of wisdom; and also about scortatory love, that its delights are the pleasures of insanity....”

[8] After this the little boy came again with a paper in his hand and held it out to me, saying, “Read.” And I read this:

“Know that the delights of conjugial love ascend to the highest heaven, and on the way and in that heaven, they conjoin themselves with the delights of all heavenly loves, and so enter into their felicity, which endures to eternity. The reason is that the delights of that love are also the delights of wisdom. And know also that the pleasures of scortatory love descend even to the lowest hell, and on the way and in that hell, they conjoin themselves with the pleasures of all infernal loves, and thus enter into their unhappiness, which consists in the deprivation of all the enjoyments of heart. The reason is that the pleasures of that love are also the pleasures of insanity.”

After this the husbands departed with their wives and accompanied the little boy even to the way of his ascent into heaven. And they knew the society from which he was sent, that it was a society of the New Heaven, with which the New Church on the earth will be conjoined.

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